I can't say anything about outside influence on AAVE myself, but I can most definitely say that it, or at least the sort of it spoken in urban areas here in southeastern Wisconsin, most definitely has double negation, and it at least to me seems to be a systematic feature throughout it.

Many IE and non-IE languages use some kind of "double negation", i.e. their speakers repeat the negative particle before or after another negative word (a pronoun, an adverb, an adjective etc.). "Double negation" languages in Europe include:

1) All Balto-Slavonic languages

That's right. We can even talk of multiple negatives in languages like Czech:

Nikdy nikdo nikde neviděl žádného mimozemšťana

or, if you cannot display the special characters:

Nikdy nikdo nikde nevide^l z^a'dne'ho mimozems^t'ana

Literally:

Never nobody nowhere haven't seen no extra-terrestrial.

Translated as:

Nobody has ever seen any E.T. anywhere.

As you can see, up to five negatives, maybe more, can be used in a single Czech sentence...

Some analyse double negatives in some languages as a kind of (negativity) agreement.

IMO, this is a very good approach to the topic.

This seems like a very good logical thing to have, and I wonder why more languages don't.

What flexibility would be lost if compulsory negativity agreement was there? In English we can say " I don't not like it/dislike it" in speech, and it would imply "I don't actively dislike it, but i definitely don't like it" - this kind of subtlety would obviously be lost if there was negativity agreement. Anything else you can think of?

_________________- "But this can be stopped."
- "No, I came all this way to show you this because nothing can be done. Because I like the way your pupils dilate in the presence of total planetary Armageddon.
Yes, it can be stopped."

French's is actually more like "I don't have a bit of money." and then the "a bit" becomes to mean the negative for every sentence. "pas" originally meant a "step", so compare "I will not walk a step.". It got extended to every sentence, thus yielding something that looks like "I will not eat a step." or "I don't have a step of money.".

As this is quite common in Slavic, I wonder what other languages or language groups have this feature.

The same exists in Hungarian too.
Nobody has ever seen any E.T. anywhere.=
Sohasenki sehol nem látott egyetlen földönkívülit sem.Never nobody nowhere no seeSG3.INDEF.PAST a single extra-terrestrialACC neither.

Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2004 5:00 pmPosts: 3197Location: One of the dark places of the world

TaylorS wrote:

double negation is very common is actual, spoken English. It doesn't exist in the formal language simply because of the idiocy of Prescriptivists.

"I don't have no money""You ain't nobody""You can't get none of this"

This is probably the same phenomenon as the French "ne ... pas".

No, it's 'very common' in the way YOU speak English. I would never say any of those things. If I did, it would not only be out of character, and ungrammatical, it would also be in danger of producing considerable offense in the wrong enviroment - as it would be assumed that somebody like me saying things like that was being patronising or mocking, and at the same time making allegations about the class of those I was talking to.

[Obviously, in the right environment, where everybody was confident in their class, it would only be annoying and rude; but if I said that to somebody who was, or thought I might think they were, of a different class from me, I would be liable to provoke umbrage]

Whether it is liked by prescriptivists or not a matter more of historical circumstances, than of logic.

There's one particular double negative that is sort of spread around over the dialect map rather haphazardly -
'inte aldrig' - not never.

_________________< Cev> My people we use cars. I come from a very proud car culture-- every part of the car is used, nothing goes to waste. When my people first saw the car, generations ago, we called it šuŋka wakaŋ-- meaning "automated mobile".

Whether it is liked by prescriptivists or not a matter more of historical circumstances, than of logic.

There's one particular double negative that is sort of spread around over the dialect map rather haphazardly - 'inte aldrig' - not never.

That's a new one to me.

I've heard it from both sides of the gulf of bothnia, and on occasion on tv by even rather southern speakers. In Finland, its distribution probably has entered every rural dialect, and there its distribution is nearly fractal on an idiolect-level.

_________________< Cev> My people we use cars. I come from a very proud car culture-- every part of the car is used, nothing goes to waste. When my people first saw the car, generations ago, we called it šuŋka wakaŋ-- meaning "automated mobile".

double negation is very common is actual, spoken English. It doesn't exist in the formal language simply because of the idiocy of Prescriptivists.

"I don't have no money""You ain't nobody""You can't get none of this"

This is probably the same phenomenon as the French "ne ... pas".

Aaactually it's only common in a few 'lects... and nah, not the same thing as french: ne...pas evolved from an idiomatic expression, AFAIK, whereas double negation, one can imagine, tends to develop from... I dunno... emphasis?

I've only heard those kinds of expressions [sp. "entrar para adentro" for instance] uttered by lower-class not too educated people, for some reason. I wonder why that is.

Didn't older forms of English more often use doubke negatives for emphasis. I remember reading one example while doing my main project in A-Level English Language of examples in both Old and Middle English as well as Early Modern English in literary works. Could it be suggested, then, that the use of double negatives in certain sociolects or dialects is a retention of an older process rather than the development of a new one? Could the disappearance of the double negative be ascribed to the "logical" negative+negative=positive rule described in the 18th Century entering into to speech of the educated elite eventually working it's way down the social ladder as people of lower classes tried to sound "above their rank" by using the language of the upper classes?

_________________You can tell the same lie a thousand times,But it never gets any more true,So close your eyes once more and once more believeThat they all still believe in you.Just one time.

A linguistics professor was lecturing to her class one day. "In English," she said, "A double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."

A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah . . .right."

Been meaning to post that for half a year.
------
Pardon if it's not relevant. x|

A linguistics professor was lecturing to her class one day. "In English," she said, "A double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."

A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah . . .right."

Been meaning to post that for half a year.------Pardon if it's not relevant. x|

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